"We are Mankind. We came from planet Earth, and we built this base, called Alpha, to learn more about space. But human error blasted this Moon out of the Earth's orbit. And so, we have traveled the Universe searching for a place to live."

— Prof. Victor Bergman

This British TV series was created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, the creators of Thunderbirds and other "Supermarionation" fare as well as UFO, and was produced by Lew Grade's ITC (in co-production with Italy's RAI during the first season, explaining the presence of Italian guest stars). It originally aired in the UK between 1975 and 1977, although several season one episodes were premiered in the US (like "Another Time, Another Place") and Australia (like "Ring Around The Moon").

It consisted of two seasons, each with a different approach; season one was slow-paced and cerebral, whereas season two had more "monster of the week" episodes. Its premise was simple: on September 13th 1999, a ridiculously small explosion blows the moon out of its orbit and accelerates it to a velocity sufficient to send it hurtling out of the solar system and travel interstellar distances in improbably short times.

During this catastrophic event the 300 persons crewing Moonbase Alpha avoid getting smeared into jelly; once things settle down a bit, they make the best of bad situation by surviving for at least three years with no means of support. They also deal with all the usual skiffy hackery — Aliens and Monsters, mysterious events, the works — without much thought to any serious science (or, often, common sense) in the resulting plots.

The massive production cost of the show meant that a network sale in the USA was more-or-less essential. Lew Grade, the head of ITC, pulled defeat from the jaws of victory by raising the asking price at the last minute in negotiations with a previously enthusiastic NBC, who called his bluff and passed. On learning of this, CBS and ABC also declined to buy it, and Grade was forced to sell it into syndication. Regardless, the ratings were successful enough that ITC commissioned a second season, with the provisos that there should be an American producer and the budget should be cut. The second season was also popular enough that a third almost happened.

A fan-produced featurette, "Message from Moonbase Alpha" (written by regular series writer Johnny Byrne, starring Zienia Merton as series regular Sandra Benes, using footage from the series and done with permission of the copyright holders, therefore almost being canonical) eventually established that the Moonbase crew found an Earth-like planet to live on.

Tropes:

Absentee Actor: When producer Fred Freiberger came on board he set up a system where from time to time two episodes would be filmed simultaneously for scheduling purposes, specially scripted so that key regulars would have a minimal presence in one episode while taking centre stage in another. The most notable pairing was "Dorzak"/"Devil's Planet" - Martin Landau does not appear at all in the former, while he's the main character in the latter.

A LOT of the aliens had hilariously odd names, especially for those who lived in the UK. Psychons ("The Metamorph") get a pass due to the nature of the plot; however the villain of "The Infernal Machine" being named Gwent (for those who don't know, a council in Wales), the entire episode "The Rules of Luton" (Luton is a town just outside London), and "One Moment of Humanity", which featured aliens called the Vegans are noteworthy examples (though in the last case, Vega is the name of a real star, and authors like James Blish had used the name to refer to aliens from Vega's solar system long before the common word "vegan" came into use).

Also Balor in "End of Eternity". Not only did he start the episode locked away for Eternity, but at the end he's blown into vacuum. Whether his Healing Factor will keep him between life and death for eternity is never addressed.

Arbitrary Skepticism: After being out in space for so long and seeing all kinds of Aliens and Monsters, the Alphans still spend a good part of the first act of "The Troubled Spirit" finding it hard to believe that there is an honest-to-goodness ghost running around Alpha killing people, and that such thing as researching the psionic potential of humans was still done back on Earth. It is the fact that one of the Moonbase researcher's skepticism makes him interrupt a seance on the prologue that starts the whole mess.

Artificial Gravity: The moonbase is equipped with "gravity shields" that provide artificial gravity, let spacecraft take off and land on planets without refueling, and allowed the moon to fly through a black hole. The shields stop working every time they would be detrimental to the plot.

Backdoor Pilot: Interestingly enough, "Message From Moonbase Alpha" could be seen as one, with Johnny Byrne mentioning that he had a concept in hand for any potential investors about a continuation series focusing on the Alphans and their descendants, 25 years after Operation Exodus when the Moon came orbiting back towards their planet. Sadly, Byrne passing away means that the idea's future is very much unknown.

Most of the female personnel on Alpha seemed to be either this or nurses. The only female regulars shown to perform any work of consequence were Dr. Russell and Sandra Benes (and, in the second season, Maya), though Sandra was clearly working in a subordinate position.

Some individual episodes had e.g. female scientists or female aliens playing an important role, but these characters were not recurring parts.

Also used in two first season stories, "Dragon's Domain" (with Dr. Russell) and "The Testament of Arcadia" (with Commander Koenig). Unfortunately, in the case of "Dragon's Domain" that means several season two episodes (such as "The Metamorph") take place in the timeframe of season one...

Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Paul Morrow, David Kano, and Tanya Alexander disappeared between seasons with no on-screen explanation (though a tie-in annual feature stated that Morrow was killed in an Eagle crash). Professor Bergman also disappeared between seasons, but not without explanation; a (deleted) dialogue exchange in "The Metamorph" (the opening episode of Season Two) confirms that Bergman died previously due to a spacesuit malfunction.

Comic Book Adaptation: Numerous. Charlton Comics published both a color comic and an adult-oriented black and white illustrated magazine (noted for copious Ms. Fanservice moments). Power Records released several comic-and-record sets, and there was also a popular comic strip in the UK. In the 2010s all of these were brought back in a remix/mashup form combined with new material for a series of graphic novels.

Cosmic Horror Story: A great many of the threats that assailed Alpha were alien intelligences that cared absolutely nothing about their plight and actually saw in them a solution to their problem (which would undoubtedly kill many if not all of the Alphans, and on a couple of occasions even Earth). The Alphans managed to beat them back, however, even if sometimes it had a great price. And on the flip side, sometimes benevolent aliens appeared (and Koenig and Bergman firmly believed that something had helped them survive as long as they did, with the odds stacked so unfairly against them).

Custom Uniform of Sexy: Averted. Despite Dr. Russell being the only female part of consequence, and Barbara Bain's obvious star status, she wears exactly the same uniform as everyone else (with the exception of not having a zipper down one sleeve — but that was for the actress's comfort, and not for comsetic purposes).

Exact Words: in the episode Earthbound, hibernating aliens en-route to Earth programmed their ship make a pit stop on the Moon. When the Moon was blasted into deep space, the ship duly diverted to land on the Moon anyway, even though the Moon is by this time light years from Earth, and maybe in another part of the Universe entirely!

Averted with the unisex uniforms of the first season, which were deliberately designed to avoid sexualizing the women. This was in marked contrast to the precursor UFO and most other Sci-Fi shows of the times.

Played straight in a few cases:

When the crew adopted, or were forced to adopt, native dress while visiting planets, those clothes sometimes were more on the Stripperific side.

While Alpha has its own mining and production facilities, this isn't enough to avoid the trope.

Averted in the Season One finale, "Testament of Arcadia". Commander Koenig tells the fanatics who want to settle on a dormant planet that the amount of supplies that they'd take would doom the rest of the Alphans.

In-universe this would also include a lot of the changes between season one and two. You could perhaps justify the new jackets, tools and weapons away as just something they already had in storage but somehow they found the resources to install/renovate whole sections and departments.

Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: There is never a direct answer about what made the Moon change course towards Arkadia, remain in orbit for some time, drained a large amount of power from Moonbase Alpha, then send it back on its merry way-or if the beings that lived on Arkadia were really Ancient Astronauts (or more specifically humanity's ancestors), or if Luke's and Anna's sudden bout of fanaticism were actually their own choice. What remains is a tale pretty similar to that of Adam and Eve that Koenig is only hopeful that those two succeed.

Misplaced Wildlife: "The Metamorph" shows Mentor having a "lion" on an alien planet. Later subverted when we discover that said lion is a form assumed by Maya.

Monster of the Week: The second season became this, upping the action quota and de-emphasizing the psychodrama, to the dismay of some fans and the delight of others.

No Pronunciation Guide: The pronunciation of Koenig was all over the place. Depending on who is talking it's either Kay-nig or Ko-nig. Helena wasn't immune either; being called Helen-a or Hel-lee-na at various points.

The two main pronunciations of Koenig's name were "Ko-nig" or "Ko-ning". If anybody really did say it as "Kay-nig", it probably only happened once.

Novelization / Expanded Universe: Adaptations of the episodes at first (with multiple changes to make them both fit together within a novel and also some changes done between final shooting script and broadcasted episode), then swinging towards the latter as they went on with multiple original stories set between Breakaway and "Message From Moonbase Alpha". A trilogy of the Expanded Universe books ("Survival", "Alpha" and "Omega") even go as far as work on bringing Professor Bergman Back from the Dead (making the deleted line from "The Metamorph" canonical but performing changes about the situation where it happened) and stranding him away from Alpha for a while, making him the P.O.V. character of a conflict between an alien race and an invasion of the "dragons" from the episode "Dragon's Domain". The novels also expand the mythology of the "cosmic intelligence" encountered on "Black Sun" and referred to on other episodes (like "War Games").

Pre Cap: The introduction to each first-season episode contained a montage of action shots from the episode, often of Eagles blowing up or people being thrown across rooms by explosions. This gave away nothing of the plot since they were presented without context.

Recycled Soundtrack: And then some, with music from other Gerry Anderson shows (and assorted library pieces) being used to bolster the few episode scores Barry Gray composed for season one. (Derek Wadsworth also only did about five episodes in season two, and they were reused as well.)

Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale: The moon was variably described as being billions of kilometers, miles, and light-years from Earth, resulting in roughly equal difficulty in returning despite the fact that the first case would put the moon closer to Earth than Saturn, while in the latter case the moon would be vastly more distant from the Milky Way galaxy than the Great Wall, currently the largest known feature of the universe. It (the moon) passed between star systems at speeds fast enough that the passengers went through a star system per week, yet remained close enough to each and slow enough to reach a planet via shuttle for days at a time.

Shiny-Looking Spaceships: Averted with the Eagle Transporters, thoroughly unglamorous work vehicles, kind of like dump trucks in space.

Space Clothes: Not as bad as some examples, but the unisex, beige jumpsuits are still very 70s. The second season actually managed to tone them down by adding a jacket to the basic moon base uniform.

Spiritual Successor: The moonbase setting, with the living quarters, control room and Eagle launch pads, seems like an expanded version of the moonbase in UFO. The original concept of the show was a Moonbase-centric, 1999-situated continuation of UFO, but in the actual show the subject matter and typical plots are very different.

Teach Him Anger: A peculiar example in "A Moment Of Humanity". The reason why a robotic takeover of a planet has not gone as far as to kill their masters is because they don't know how to feel (or act) violently, so they abduct some of the Alphans and try to force them (in various ways, including seduction) to act violent around them so they can learn.

Terra Deforming: In one episode, the Alphans make contact with Earth, where it's a couple of centuries later due to relativity or something, and the entire population lives in domed cities because the outside environment is toxic. That exact phrase "Who needs nature" has become something of a Catch Phrase, and you get the sense that nobody on Earth is too bothered about the loss of the ecosystem.

Ben Ouma, Moonbase Alpha's computer expert in "Breakaway", the first episode. Personal conflicts with the rest of the cast actor meant that actor Lon Stratton only appeared in one episode. Rather than recast the role, the character of Ouma was replaced with...

David Kano, Moonbase Alpha's computer expert in the rest of the first season. He averted this trope fairly well for a 70s series, and he certainly gets a lot more to do per episode than, say, Lt. Uhura.

Doctor Matthias, as well, had an important role in many episodes, being one of only two doctors on the base. Unlike Kano he returned for season two, although the character only appeared in two episodes of the final season.

X Days Since: Episodes in the second season usually begin with the narration "X days after leaving Earth's orbit". The totals, however, frequently don't agree with numbers used during the first season, or with each other.

You Fail Astronomy Forever: All exterior shots of the moonbase are illuminated by bright sunlight, and always from the same angle - even when the moon is in deep space, light years from the nearest star.

You Look Familiar: Multiple instances; but no guest played more than two different characters.

Most notably, Catherine Schell guest-starred in first-season episode "Guardian of Piri"; then in the second season, joined the regular cast as beautifulalienmetamorph Maya.

BRIAN BLESSED played Dr. Cabot Rowland in an episode of the first season (dying at the end of it), then returned in the second season to play Maya's father (and died again).

The main computer is pictured in a way typical of the time before the public was exposed to computers: it seems to be a sort of oracle that can solve any problem given enough input data.

On the other hand, the input and output devices used by the computer are very primitive: enormous wall-mounted keyboards (with unmarked keys) that seem to require experts to operate (the fact some people spontaneously develop the capacity to input information on Computer at all-let alone at an insanely quick speed-is the first sign that something is not right on a couple of episodes), and output printed on narrow paper tape that has to be torn off and read aloud by an operator.

Many shots of high-tech equipment featured the large, open-reel tape drives typical of 1970's computers (but in real life made obsolete long before 1999).

On the same page, it's easy to notice that various "portable terminals" that appear throughout the series (such as for example on "Testament Of Arcadia" ) are actually calculators of the type that were cutting-edge technology in 1975.

The first season's beige, unisex uniforms with flared trouser legs and broad, shiny belts — and the no-bra look for the women — seem very much like The Seventies today.

Shapeshifter Swan Song: Happens to Maya on "Space Warp". The plight of the Alphans then becomes 1) saving her from dying and 2) preventing the highly destructive monsters that she's changing into from wrecking the Moonbase with their rampage.

Stable Time Loop: The final twist of "Message From Moonbase Alpha": Benes' final report from Alpha, pleading those on Earth to remember them and sent through a boosted carrier wave back to Earth but with the Alphans not knowing when (or if) it would arrive, went back in time and was the Meta Planet's wave, which pretty much was the trigger for the whole series.

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